BOMARZO. - Ancient episcopal see of Lazio, on the edge of the plateau extending towards the Monti
L. Duchesne would explain the successive denominations by the transfer of the episcopal see from Ferento to B., which took place between the 6th and 7th centuries due to the Lombard invasion. The bishop of Ferento would have retired to B., a castle in his diocese subject to the Byzantines, and would have kept the remaining part under his obedience, while the other part would have been incorporated by another diocese under Lombard rule. Gams, on the other hand, would make B. a diocese of the 1st century, assigning its first bishop, named Ptolemy, to the year 69. This Ptolemy is actually the same St. Ptolemy venerated at Sutri, called in his Passio—which is neither ancient nor authoritative—"episcopus Pentapolis et Tusciae", and placed by the same work under Claudius II (268-70). The same author makes a St. Anselm follow in the series of the bishops of B. for the year 545, of whom we have a Vita (11th century: BHL, 542) containing contradictory chronological indications and commonplaces of medieval hagiography, which do not allow us to determine the age of the bishop, who lived, if at all, long after 545, given his Teutonic name, as F. Lanzoni observes. After 1015 there is no further news of any bishop of B.